To the Venerable Hierarchs of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops:
Masters, bless!
Your Beatitude, Your Eminences, and Your Graces doubtless are aware of the following:
- Volodymyr Zelensky is severely and unjustly persecuting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC).
- Metropolitan Tikhon of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) recently sent a supportive message to Met. Onuphry of the UOC, upon the 12th anniversary of his enthronement. The UOC is the canonical Church in Ukraine, despite ongoing, state-sponsored violence and usurpation of its properties.
- On Sept. 26, the trustees of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine at the World Trade Center plan to give Zelensky the 2026 “Beacon of Hope” Award in New York City.
What the Reverend Hierarchs of the Holy Assembly of Bishops may not realize is that many Orthodox Christians consider the Zelensky event sheer madness. Our blog is collecting petition signatures against the event:
News of our petition has appeared on the UOJ, Pravda, Helleniscope, YouTube, and Greek-language blogs, among others. As of this writing, our petition has garnered more than 1,300 signatures from America and abroad.
Further, a member of St. Anna Greek Orthodox Church in New Jersey has filed a criminal complaint, challenging the legality of the Zelensky event:
The most common question we receive about this impending event is: Where are the bishops?
Well-informed Orthodox laity realize that American bishops are reluctant to involve themselves in other jurisdictions’ affairs. Normally, that discretion is warranted.
However, the Zelensky event is unique because it implicitly endorses Zelensky’s persecution of Christians and his war in Ukraine, which Americans abhor but are forced to continue financing.
In summary, the proposed award will be bestowed upon an atheistic tyrant, at a ritzy restaurant, under the auspices of a Greek Orthodox Church and shrine that resides upon the ashes of the heinous 9/11 attack, and will occur while America is embroiled in a war on behalf of this tyrant.
The silence, thus far, of our Reverend Hierarchs on the event’s improprieties betrays the persecuted Ukrainians; all of those killed in the Russo-Ukrainian War; the American laity who pray for Ukraine while also coercively paying taxes that fund its destruction; those slaughtered at Ground Zero 25 years ago; and America’s longstanding religious freedom.
The Zelensky event is so outrageous and ostentatious, such a desecration, so lacking in common sense and decency, that even the heathen must be agog.
We humbly call upon America’s Orthodox bishops to publicly denounce and repudiate Zelensky’s “Beacon of Hope” Award and to insist that the event planners choose a worthy non-political honoree instead.
We further call upon America’s Orthodox Christians to share and discuss this letter in all forums.
Kissing your right hands and humbly requesting your archpastoral blessings,
The Writers at Orthodox Reflections
Readers, please copy, personalize, and send this letter to your own hierarchs.
